Join us live on our Fireside Chat on Thursday, May 28, 9 a.m. CST. We will talk about the cohort, and answer your questions. There’s no charge to attend, but you’ll want to register here.

What are you doing for your entrepreneurs with a good idea for a business? And for your community members who want to build a stronger community?

We’ve created an exciting new cohort that addresses both segments.

This is a new direction. Entrepreneurs and Community Builders working and learning together. Entrepreneurs will learn to think more about community. Community leaders learn to think more about sustainable models. Both become stronger. These two groups need each other, yet they are so often addressed separately.

This rural cohort initiative is designed with resilience and self-sufficiency in mind. Creating stronger communities by creating stronger businesses and community initiatives is a powerful catalyst – the force that makes us stronger, better, and growing.

Entrepreneurial Ideas Into Businesses

We’re talking about businesses that fit into the space between thinking about starting a business and the growth stage.

There are many possible business ideas from your local community that are often held back by barriers to entry. You need a building, a product, a business plan, and lots of money. Money you don’t have access to, or the means to get it.

What if we could show you a way to work with your people who have good ideas? 

Help them get started in developing their entrepreneurial venture and:

·        Try the first tests of the idea

·        Learn visibility strategies

·        Begin tracking sales and marketing efforts

·        And begin early-stage collaborations.

Putting Community Building Into Action

We’re talking about people and organizations ready to start experiments to bring more vitality, revenue, and quality of life to town. So many organizations are still operating in silos and have not learned how to collaborate and make room for everyone. They are missing opportunities to make a real difference.

What if we could show you how to work with people and organizations using a clear, actionable idea, and with those who are ready to experiment, collaborate, and learn in public? You’d help them:

·        Capture new promising practices

·        Develop creative solutions shared across the community

·        Build confidence, skills, and connections.

How does this cohort work?

 Over 10 weeks, we hold five 90-minute virtual sessions to help up to 10 communities or project teams make visible, measurable progress on one meaningful idea, project, or business. Participants complete structured action steps between sessions and actively support one another’s projects.

Participants work on real projects throughout the cohort, applying tools from SaveYour.Town’s Idea Friendly Method and Mashup Lab’s Ideas Into Action framework to test, refine, and advance their initiatives in small, practical steps.

Rather than a one-way training, the cohort functions as a peer-learning lab. Each location brings a specific idea to the table, then learns from shared stories, questions, and experiments across the group. Sessions combine brief content, live examples, and group consultation so participants see multiple approaches, hear what is working in other communities, and adapt those lessons at home between sessions. This is not the lecture hall, and you just take notes and hope it works when you try it at home. This is the interactive, engaging cohort that gets better and better because all the participants are working together.

Why should it be funded?

• Proven Experience & Combined 30+ years of rural community and economic development expertise across the facilitator team
• Rural-Specific Focus & Content and approach specifically designed for rural contexts, not adapted from urban models
• Action-Oriented & Participants work on real projects with real deadlines, not theoretical case studies
• Learning Partnership & Transparent experimental approach ensures continuous improvement and documented insights
• Scalable Model & This cohort creates a replicable framework for future rural entrepreneurship and community development programs

Who’s leading this cohort?

Andrew Button

Andrew Button, founder and CEO of Mashup Lab, is focused on one thing: unleashing the entrepreneurial potential of rural places by helping people in small communities turn ideas into real businesses. Drawing on more than 25 years of experience in rural economic development, he has designed and led online entrepreneurship cohorts that guide aspiring business owners from first idea through launch and early growth. Andrew and the Mashup Lab team have supported over 2,000 entrepreneurs in more than 700 rural communities through their 100% virtual Dream Business Program, providing coaching, peer support, and practical tools during this structured, multi-week cohort-based program.

Deb Brown and Becky McCray   SaveYour.Town

Deb Brown and Becky McCray are the cofounders of SaveYour.Town.They bring a lifetime of real-world experience to helping rural communities and small towns thrive. Both are dynamic facilitators, known for guiding communities through practical, action-oriented conversations that move people past “nothing will work here” and into concrete steps toward revitalization, entrepreneurship, and local capacity-building. 

Deb has worked with Dakota Resources, facilitating and leading cohorts on the topics of Filling Empty Buildings and Collaborations. Deb spent two years working in a cohort fashion with five counties in Montana. One project, the Bozeman Trail, is still active today.  

Becky is a lifelong rural entrepreneur and cattle rancher. She is known for turning big-picture rural trends into down-to-earth actions that local people can use right away, offering unique, tested approaches to issues such as shrinking downtowns, economic stagnation, and resistance to change.

Through keynotes, Action Visits, workshops, online learning, writing, and hands-on projects, they help local leaders and residents create the kind of town they want using the assets they already have.

Join our Fireside Chat on Thursday, May 28, 9 a.m. CST. There’s no charge to attend, but you’ll want to register here.